COVID-19: McGowan Government postpones skills summit after lockdown

The McGowan Government’s highly anticipated skills summit will be postponed in the wake of the four-day circuit-breaker lockdown. The summit, which was meant to be held on Wednesday but has now been postponed indefinitely, was announced last month to combat crippling labour shortages. A State Government spokesman confirmed the summit was being delayed in light of the lockdown to control the fast-spreading Delta variant. “This is an unfortunate but unavoidable decision in the circumstances,” he said. “We understand attendees were looking forward to the Skills Summit and the opportunity to provide their input on how industry and government can work together to address the State’s skills needs.” The spokesman said a new date would be confirmed in due course, and that attendees were being asked to email their ideas to the Department of Training and Workforce Development. There have now been three cases linked to the outbreak, which was triggered by a 59-year-old woman who contracted COVID-19 at a Bondi cafe during a trip to NSW. The skills summit will eventually bring together industry leaders from a wide range of sectors including mining, construction, defence and healthcare. Some industry leaders who planned to attend said they were looking forward to working on greater collaboration to upskill the local workforce, and pushing for more support to open up migration channels. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry WA’s latest business confidence survey found 79 per cent of local businesses were struggling to fill a skilled occupation in the three months to June — up from 54 per cent the previous quarter.